The Crime Fiction of Phnom Penh @ Crime Reads

Patrick French reports on Drifters, Conspirators, and Noir in Cambodia’s Capital City for Crime Reads and writes…

“Hard-boiled and noir is pretty much the only option on the menu when it comes to Phnom Penh crime writing. Tom Vater, a Bangkok-based writer and publisher, wrote The Cambodian Book of the Dead (2013) which sees German Detective Maier travels to Phnom Penh to find the heir to a Hamburg coffee empire. It’s 2001 and Cambodia is only just emerging from Pol Pot, starvation, civil war and political infighting. Maier is plunged back into Cambodia’s dark history, which collides with his own when it transpires that a Nazi war criminal has remained hidden among the chaos of the Khmer Rouge.”